Filed under: Trucks/Pickups, Etc., Ford And then there was one. All of the Ford Ranger's contemporaries have forsaken the compact segment for the middleweight class. The Ranger is long in the tooth, to say the least, but we love the smaller size and many find it a good blend of truck functionality without the bulk and heft of a full-size. You can buy into a Ranger for $15 grand, which is a reasonable point of entry for a work truck. There used to be F150s outfitted for labor in that price range, but good luck finding a decontented full-sizer now. While the Ranger's platform is now exclusive to the model, it did sire the Explorer, via the Bronco II. Lineage aside, it's typically expensive for an automaker to have a platform that doesn't get shared, but the underpinnings of the Ranger have long been paid for. We suspect that's part of why we're not seeing much action in the trucklet arena from Ford. To engineer a new Ranger would cost money (that's arguably better spent elsewhere right now), and moving the smallest Ford Truck to a new platform raises conflicts with other models. %Gallery-3100% continued after the jump with photochops to illustrate ideas Continue reading The Ranger is (nearly) dead, long live the Ranger Permalink | Email this | Comments More...
